Medium sized businesses are more optimistic than a year ago with 87% now planning growth over the next 12 months, according to the annual ANZ Privately-Owned Business Barometer.
ANZ’s commercial managing director Graham Turley said the Barometer also showed that the cautious optimism was tempered by the need for continuing improvements in sales and margins before owners will commit to new activity. Some 87% of businesses owners surveyed plan growth in the next year, up from 57% a year ago. Just 13% expect their businesses to contract, well down from 43% last year.
“The Barometer this year shows owners are cautiously optimistic about growth,” Turley said. “Forward thinking business owners have moved on from focusing largely on short-term cost management activities to get them through the recession.”
For sustainable growth close working capital management would be vital as well as considering funding growth from sources other than debt and cash flow.
Now in its fourth year, the ANZ Privately-Owned Business Barometer is an annual survey of privately-owned businesses with annual turnover of between NZ$2 million and NZ$150 million. This year the survey was circulated to 2,275 private businesses during February and March with responses received from 804 businesses, or 35% of those asked to participate.
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